Boston suburb reflects broad changes in US immigration

CHELSEA, Mass. — Guatemalan bakeries, Honduran restaurants and Salvadoran markets are joining an already ethnically diverse mix of businesses in downtown Chelsea, a tiny industrial city across the Mystic River from Boston.

Among them is Catracho’s, a modest Honduran eatery recently purchased by Johanna Mateo, who was born in New York and raised in Honduras until she was 12, when she joined her older sister in Chelsea.

“I always wanted to reinvest in Chelsea,” said Mateo, 27, who plans to expand to a vacant storefront next door.

“I like the roots it’s set within the Latin American community, and I want to keep it that way.”

Chelsea (population, 40,000) is a microcosm of broader changes sweeping the United States, as the number of Central American immigrants increases and the number of Mexican immigrants decreases. Mexico generated one of the largest immigration waves in U.S. history, starting in 1965 and lasting well into this century, until an improved Mexican economy and lower birthrates helped reverse the trend. Now, more immigrants are fleeing poverty and violence in Central America’s Northern Triangle.

Mexicans are still the largest group in the U.S. illegally but are down to 5 million in 2017 from 7 million a decade earlier, while Central Americans rose by 400,000 to 1.9 million and Asians also grew, the Pew Research Center reported last month.

Nationwide, Pew estimated 10.5 million people in the U.S. illegally, down from a peak of 12.2 million a decade earlier.

The dynamic is playing out at the state level, said Jeffrey Passel, co-author of the report. Only five states saw statistically significant increases from 2007 to 2017, led by Massachusetts and followed by Maryland. Both are magnets for Central Americans. California, with its large numbers of Mexicans, and other immigrant-heavy states such as Florida, Illinois, New Jersey and New York have fewer people in the country illegally.

The changes extend to immigrants regardless of legal status.

In Massachusetts, 8% of immigrants are Central Americans, while less than 1% are Mexican,

In this June 30 photo, passers-by walk on a side of Latin foods, in Chelsea, Mass.

according to census data analyzed by the Migration Policy Institute. In Maryland, 24% of immigrants are Central American, compared with only 4% Mexican. Nationwide, 33% of immigrants are Central American and 25% are Mexican.

The demographic shifts are transforming the Boston area and helping fuel its economic boom, said Luc Schuster, director of Boston Indicators project.

As recently as 1990, most foreign-born

street near a store

residents in the area hailed from European nations. Today, China, the Dominican Republic and Brazil top the list, he said. No European country even cracks the top 10.

Boston’s urban ring cities have seen the most marked changes. Just two decades ago, Chelsea and its neighbors — Everett, Malden, Revere and Lynn — were all majority white.

Now, they’re among the region’s most diverse communities, Schuster’s

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study found.

Chelsea is now more than 60% Latino. More than one-third of residents hail from Central America, mostly from El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala.

The city had a growing Latino community of mostly Puerto Ricans, Dominicans and Cubans when her family arrived from Puerto Rico in the 1960s, recalls Gladys Vega, the longtime head of the Chelsea Collaborative, a community advocacy group.